McCaw on his knees, entering from the side, grabbing on to the ball. Ref correctly calls a penalty against the ABs. Australians pissed.
Consequently, Higginbackside delivers a cheap shot, an incredibly infantile -though non too-violent- knee into McCaw's face (which is downright stupid and unnecessary and deserves a yellow card). End of story from my point of view.
I don't care much about the following headbutt because when two foreheads nearly touch each other, at one point one player is going to give in to the other's provocation - and we all know Ritchie is too busy developing his loveable and fairplay aura for him to deliver the first blow). There are far worse things going on all around the pitch (twisted necks in rucks, hands in the genital area in tackles, etc) ...
Maybe a two-match ban against Higginposterior for his unsportsmanlike behaviour.

RD please don't take this personally but I don't think that severe injury replays (whatever the injury: torn ligaments, early signs of cardiac arrest..) should be featured. I never watch them on TV, either looking the other way during slow-motion or getting up and going elsewhere, as I feel that it's borderline invasive in terms of a player's personal dignity.
This said, I very sincerely hope that Hoani MacDonald makes it through unscathed.

This just reminded me of a signboard I saw a few years back, in an Irish pub in central England. It read in big letters: "DO NOT DRINK AND DRIVE" and then in small print: "you may spill your drink". A totally irresponsible message, but I did laugh :)

However much I agree with you that the Bordeaux players would have been very upset and thus let their anger flare a bit (especially due to an unsteady reffing of the scrum), I also do somewhat agree with 123456 that in pro rugby, not just in the Top14, players talk back to the ref more and more. The other day, in the Top14, I witnessed Damien Traille, captain of Biarritz, walk over to the referee and say "it's not possible, it's always us! (who are penalised) it's not possible!". He instantly lost almost all the sympathy I had for him.

What a match! When it started I thought "Toulouse is going to trample Bordeaux, I'll probably get bored halfway" ... but boy was I wrong.
Incredible running on rainy conditions. That 2nd Matanavu try was so bloody lucky (he trips, loses the ball, falls to the floor, and the ball lands right in his arms, so no knock-on).
Florian Fritz played scrum-half near the end of the game as Burgess and Doussain had left the field. A position he knew nothing much about, as he spent most of his time at that position playing like a 9th forward.

At the end I felt terrible for Bordeaux, as Toulouse clearly didn't deserve to win. But that's how you recognize a good team, even when they suck they still win in the end.

Sidenote: after the 5th or 6th scrum penalty in overtime Bordeaux should have let Toulouse score a try, this might have given them a chance of the following conversion not going through (and thus of a tie game). Kudos for their forwards for trying to resist until the end though, even one man down in the scrum.

These new laws have been implemented in France too (apart from the TMO one, the Top14 having its very own TMO innovation). So I gather that they will be in Sanzar next season ; this delay certainly has something to do with calendar differences between North and South.
The 5 secs in rucks often leads forwards and scrum-halves to start panicking.

Well French lower leagues have a strong reputation for brawls.
But in my case the worst I've ever done in terms of anger/agression on a field, is shove a guy out of a ruck from behind him (I was totally offside), just because on the race to the ball he had shoved me out of the way with an elbow and held me up a bit.
I personally can't imagine getting into a fight. But I know a few guys on the field who are dying for an opportunity :)
Once, a 10 shoved my face into the mud while he was getting up, because I had just hard-tackled him and made him bungle a 3 against 1 opportunity. I looked at him and smiled through muddy teeth (I hope it pissed him off even more).